Tips & Info

The summer starts here! The surf school is awake after its winter hibernation and we are open seven days a week from 10am to 6pm.  The beginning of the season is always a bit of a shock to the system but its great to be out of ‘admin mode’ and back in the surf coach mindset.
Meanwhile all of our summer stock has arrived in the shop in the last week so we are getting to grips with all the new clobber. Being a new dad I have brainwashed myself into thinking that we should stock children’s clothes so we tasked the creative geniuses at ASP screenprinters with coming up with a few designs.

And boy did they deliver! The My Dad Surfs Better Than Your Dad baby-grows and tees are on the shelves and very reasonably priced they are too!

Baby not included.

We’re suckers for bleeding heart sob stories here at GAS so when local ripper and surf coach Paddy Daniel rocked up ashen with worry and lacking his usual exuberance we knew that we were about to get guilt-tripped into doing something. To be able to bet on surfers with ease, you can click links such as Kcasino.

Paddy (far right), and his partners in crime Tassy Swallow, 17, (left) and Harry De Roth, 13, (the other one) are all from the area and have been chosen to surf for Britain against the worlds best surfers in the World Junior Surfing Games in Panama.
‘Hang on a minute, that’s not a sob story’, I hear you cry.

Well, if your 17 years old, the current and the previous governments have damned you to a future of serfdom and you have to cough up the £2500 to get there then you realise he may have a point. It’s pretty expensive this ‘surfing for your country’ business isn’t it?
Paddy does have a certain entrepreneurial streak however so he suggested that he might be able to drum up some cash if he offered his alma mater, Penpol Junior School, a surfing lesson.
All he needed was 25 surfboards, a load of wetsuits and a gullible surf school owner.
I’m pleased to say that the lesson was a roaring success and judging by the smiles on the Penpol pupils faces today could be the genesis of the next wave of British Surf Team members.
Well done Pads, Tas and Hazza and good luck in Panama. We’re all rooting for you.

Spring is here. For definite. It must be spring – the surf has gone flat!
Well, not quite flat but it’s been pretty small as the Atlantic begins to calm down after a very busy winter. Meanwhile the Easter break is just two weeks away now so its time to put the finishing touches on the surf school.
We gave her a lick of paint back in early February and now the summer stock is arriving so it’s should be fairly hectic for us despite there being barely a customer in sight. We are gonna have to  make the most of the swell over the next month or so as after that we’ll just be too busy.
Can’t complain though, summer is what we live for. And here she comes – wahoo!

What is supposedly the coldest time of the year is passing by nicely thank you very much. Sure, we’re not in shorts and t-shirts but its been dry and relatively warm though the mist has been a bit of a pain. I haven’t even had to light the fire in the evenings so thats a pretty good sign.
And the surf? Well, that ain’t been too shabby either. There has been plenty on swell in the last week or so and the settled weather has brought light winds making two surfs a day possible without having to spend hours thawing out in between.

Fatherhood, contrary to expectations, has made me much keener for surfing. This is probably due to not being able to choose my moments for a surf as well as normal so I have ended up surfing Gwithian at unusual, for me, times and tides. I’m normally a ‘high tide’ or ‘two hours before low’ surfer but now that my surfing window is dictated solely by Finns (the little’uns) feeding patterns I am surfing waves and parts of the beach that I would never normally bother with. I used to be quite choosey about the quality of waves I would risk putting on a wet wetsuit in a cold gravel car park but now if there is any sort or rideable wave I’m in there.
Today, thankfully, the waves are absolutely smoking so I should get a few during Finns afternoon snooze.
Meanwhile Ian (aka Gab – surf school manager and top dog in my absence) has been getting a lick of paint round the surf school and getting everything ready for summers stock which should arrive any day now. It’s looking ship shape and bristol fashion down there now and ready for the doors to be flung open on Saturday 31st of March. Can’t wait.
And finally, we are running our first ASI Surf Coach course of the season on the 4th, 5th and 6th of March. If you’re looking to fritter your life away at the beach then this has to be the best way to do it!

Half term is upon us so its time to get things up and running for a week or so. Cornwall is still a little on the quiet side despite the kids having broken up for a week. This is not unusual for this time of year –  there may be a few more people around but its barely noticeable. I guess if you are thinking of a holiday at this time of year most people would prefer to hit the slopes in Europe rather than a Cornish beach holiday.

There are still a few brave souls on the beach but then the Great British holiday maker has to be an optimist. I even saw some people swimming in shorts yesterday despite the mizzle and the 8˚ water. For the record I won’t even go in the water in shorts unless its over 20˚ and the middle of August. And even then I won’t last much more than 20 minutes. I’m just too used to wetsuits and warmth these days to even consider it – pathetic, I know.
Meanwhile we are making the most of the quiet time to give the surf school a lick of paint, a very deep clean and rearrange things to make the most of the space we have.
We also have a ASI surf coach course coming up on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th of March so we will be putting some new trainee coaches through their paces and getting them ready for what will hopefully be a lifetime of surf coaching. There are still a few spots open if you’re keen!